Second Half 2012 CIO Hiring Trends

While IT spending might have softened over the last few years, skilled IT leaders and IT professionals are still in demand. Global IT spending is below its peak but ended 2011 stronger than in 2010. Spending on technology and infrastructure is strong in several areas including both advanced data analysis tools, cloud computing, and security.

CIOs and businesses are looking to both capital and human technology investments to help them cut costs throughout the organization. As a result, the best of CIOs and senior IT leaders with these types of experiences are in demand. The CIOs, CTOs, and IT directors who report to them, continue to play an increasingly critical role in establishing and executing business strategy. This is true at both medium and inelarge sized organizations even where the CIO may not be a board member or report directly to the CEO.

In this role is is always wise for the CIO to look beyond technology examine many of the the business factors that are drive growth in their organizations. The business decisions always drive CIO hiring and downsizing intiiatives.A recent survey from CareerBuilder examines the changes that companies have planned for their overall workforces in the coming months.

Below are some selected highlights on the recent hiring plans for the remainder of 2012. The nationwide survey was conducted for CareerBuilder by Harris Interactive from May - June 2012. Approximately 2,000 hiring managers and human resources professionals in the public and private sectors participated in the survey, which asked about hiring plans from July 1-December 31, 2012.

1. About 44% of respondents report they will be hiring full-time, permanent staff by year's end, up from 35 percent in second-half 2011.

2. About 21% of respondents report looking for part-time workers in the next several months. This is an increase from 15% in second-half 2011.

3. About 34% of respondents with 500 or fewer employees report the addition of full-time staff in second-half 2012.

4. About 22% of respondents say that they'll be adding employees in IT in second-half 2012.

5. In looking at emerging occupations the research shows that 16% of respondents now have jobs related to social media.

6. Aboutn 15% of respondents now have jobs tied to storing and managing data. These jobs did not exist as recently as 5 years ago.

7. About 12% of respondents say that they now have cyber security-focused jobs that didn't exist five years ago.

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Bill has been a member of the technology and publishing industries for more than 25 years and brings extensive expertise to the roles of CEO, CIO, and Executive Editor. Most recently, Bill was COO and Co-Founder of CIOZone.com and the parent company PSN Inc. Previously, Bill held the position of CTO of both Wiseads New Media and About.com.